Who or What are the An-sarra

We call the An-sarra the First Empire, but, strictly speaking, that is not true. They are the oldest know empire that stretched out across the galaxy. Their light went out of the galaxy hundreds of thousands of years ago, but their culture and history affect us to this day.

Before discussing what we do know about the An-sarra, there are a few terms I must clarify.

An-sarra in their native script

An-sarra, the People

An-sarra is an identity, not a species. Individual An-sar could come from any world in the empire, regardless their species. Many books attempt to describe what they looked like, but these descriptions are all biased by the Sarim's claim to be the descendants of the the An-sarra founders. These claim cannot be verified in any substantial way, so I tend to ignore them.

What we do know is that the founders were a species called, Dumu-gir

An-sar(ra), their name for their own race meant "All of heaven, the whole sky."

An-uras

An-uras, the World

An-ki, the Empire

The An-sar(ra) ruled an empire they called the An-ki from their homeworld of An-ki. They were a proud people as these An-sarran words indicate: ⁃ ⁃ An-ki, their name for their own empire meant "The Universe." ⁃ An-uras, their name for their own homeworld meant "heaven and earth."HistorySome historical documents indicate that this self-centered view of the universe may have been an accident and not originally a part of their culture.Before the advent of mass media on An-ki, there were hundreds of languages, distinct cultures, and nations. The predominate people were the Dumu-gir. The mass media created by the Dumu-gir spread throughout the world. To them, the whole world was the An-uras, the sky and the ground, and the people of the world were the Di-di-la An-sar, "the children of the whole sky."As the Dumu-gir language became the dominate one, Di-di-la An-sar shortened to An-sar.As they spread into space, they established the Bal-kalam An-ki, the "Tributary States of the Universe," the colonies and the Usumgal-kalam An-ki, "The Sovereign State of the Universe." Many criticized the word choices, but they were much loved by the political classes who loved to promote the power and superiority of the Usumgal-kalam An-ki or to decry the poor treatment of the Bal-kalam An-ki, so the names stuck.During and after a brutal civil war, the imperials picked up their dragon banner (Usumgal meant sovereign and dragon), and battlecry, "For the Universe (An-ki)." After the imperial victory, the reunified empire was simply referred to as An-ki (the universe).The imperials passed laws against mass media in any language other than Dumu-gir. The empire stabalized and began to expand again.The An-sarra had close relations with the Thalassans.

An-sarra font is Nirichaen, created by Pieter Rottiers.

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